Musing and History

Quote of the day:
“I predict happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the guise of taking care of them.”
                                                      Thomas Jefferson

Trivia question of the day:
The pronghorn antelope of the American great plains has the eyesight of a human with a 4 power scope and can run 60 mph sustained. There is no predator out there that can even come close. Why did this animal evolve with these attributes? Answer at the end of the blog.

A while back a woman was seen staggering down the street near the old slave market in Charleston, SC. A cop stopped her and asked her who she was. She tried to explain amid a shower of saliva, that she “was the daughter of Governor Mark Sanford and drunker than s—t.” Governor Sanford has four sons…that we know of.  The cop escorted her to the nearest hotel so she could sleep it off and asked her how she was going to pay for the hotel and she said “Daddy will pay for it”. The desk clerk asked for identification. The woman hesitated and then turned to the cop and said “F—k it, just take me to jail.”

The cops went into a bar on James Island near Charleston, SC to break up a cat fight. Two women were swinging haymakers at each other about whether or not one of them had fake boobs or not. The cops broke up the fight and the determination of the reality of the boobs was never found out, but the shiner under the left eye of one of them was genuine.

                                This Date in History August 6

1945 A year earlier under the utmost secrecy the United States Army Air Force organized the 509th Composite Group and based them at Westover Air Base in the remote Utah Desert. They were under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets. Colonel Tibbets had been assigned “Operation Silverplate” which would require ultra-precision bombing accuracy but Tibbets did not tell anyone the purpose of the mission. After intensive training with the aircraft carrying a single 10,000 lb bomb and dropping it with extreme accuracy. After Colonel Tibbets was satisfied with the level of expertise with his crews, he moved the whole Group to the small central Pacific island of Tinian where the US Navy Seabees had hacked out an airfield from nearly pure coral. Tinian’s neighboring island was Saipan which the United States Marines had won from the Japanese in a battle a few months earlier that went down in history as one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. Colonel Tibbets continued training until he called his crews together and told them their mission which was to drop the first atomic bomb in history. They had been given a list of three targets that was prioritized. The first target was Hiroshima, Japan. At 2:30A on this date three aircraft departed about an hour apart. They were B-29’s named “The Great Artiste”, “Necessary Evil” and the “Enola Gay”. “The Great Artiste” carried all the instrumentation to monitor the effects of the bomb, “The Necessary Evil” was the weather recon aircraft that would go ahead and take a look at the weather over the target and call back with what they observed. The actual bomb was aboard the “Enola Gay” piloted by Colonel Tibbets himself. The three aircraft rendezvoused over Iwo Jima and headed for Hiroshima. President Harry Truman had been ambivalent about the use of the bomb but after he read about the American casualties after the Battle for Okinawa and what the Japanese were willing to sacrifice, he knew that the atomic bomb was the only alternative to an invasion of Japan that would probably cost 1,000,000 American casualties and authorized the use of the bomb while attending the Potsdam Conference. The weather over Hiroshima was clear and when the “Necessary Evil” passed over an air raid warning was issued but it was only one aircraft so everyone on the ground went on with their business. The “Necessary Evil” reported back to the “Enola Gay” that all was well over the target. At about 8:20a the “Enola Gay” released the bomb known as “Little Boy”. 47 seconds later the bomb detonated at 2,000 feet above the surface for maximum effect and for a microsecond a light brighter than the sun was seen over the city and a wall of heat and wind rushed over the city and leveled it in the blink of an eye, not to mention over 70,000 Japanese were instantly incinerated and an additional 35,000 died of radiation poisoning a few weeks later. On August 9, this whole scenario was repeated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki with similar results. On August 12 of the first time in history, the Japanese emperor broadcast on the radio and uttered the word “surrender”. This was the first time the Japanese people had ever heard the voice of any of their emperors especially saying these words. The Second World War was finally over.

1890 On this date the first execution by electric chair was done in the Auburn Prison in New York. The poor victim was a man named William Klemmer who had killed his girlfriend with an axe. A few years before a convict in the prison had accidentally touched two ends of an operating generator and was killed instantly. The prison officials felt that this form of execution would be more humane that hanging as was the norm at the time. Sometimes when a person was hanged, their neck was not broken and they hung there struggling until they died of asphyxiation. They hooked up Klemmer with several electrodes and lit him off with 700 volts for two minutes. The witnesses smelled burning clothes and flesh but Klemmer was far from dead. So they hit him again with 1,100 volts for three more minutes and this time he died, primarily because one of the electrodes burned through his flesh and contacted his spine. One of the observers said “It would have been better if they had used an axe.”

1874 Earlier the previously prosperous Shirley family of Carthage, Missouri had lost all they had because of the Civil War and had moved to Texas to start over. In the family was daughter named Myra Maybelle aged 16. She met an ex-confederate guerrilla named Jim Reed and Myra Maybelle Shirley and he were married and moved back to Missouri. Jim was not the ambitious type and chose to make a living for him and Myra by robbing, stealing and rustling. Not only that he drank too much and on this date was killed by law enforcement officers. Myra Maybelle gained the nickname Belle Starr when she took up with another outlaw named Tom Starr who commanded a ruthless group of rustlers. And that name stuck with her the rest of her life. She honed her skills in crime and on occasion would carry out a raid on her own. The heat became too hot for Belle and Tom in Missouri so they took it on the lam into the wilds of the Indian country of Oklahoma looking for more adventure. The rest of her exciting life is worthy of another lesson.

Born today:

1868 French writer Paul Claubert: he said “It is fortunate that diplomats have long noses because they usually can’t see past them.” Good observation, Paul.

1911 US comedienne Lucile Ball. She said “The secret to staying young is to eat slowly, live honestly and lie about your age.”

1928 Polish artist Andy Warhol. He said “Richard Simmons is carrying Rex Reed’s baby.”

Answer to the trivia question:
The pronghorn antelope developed those attributes because at one time there was a North American cheetah that preyed upon them. That animal is now extinct but the pronghorn retained the attributes.

          Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow